Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games #2)(81)

“In a home owned by Professor Alfredo Durand.”

My stomach tightening, I glance at him.

He says, “We had a little chat with your professor after the FBI did. He said you two were the brightest minds he’d ever encountered. Huge potential to change the world. So he took you under his wing and gave you the keys to the kingdom. Twenty-four-seven access to the best computer science and artificial intelligence lab on the planet.”

“Which would have cost him his job if the university had found out.”

“So you protected him during the investigation by saying you’d been living in your car.”

I say forcefully, “Too many innocent people have paid for S?ren’s sins. I wasn’t about to let Professor Durand be another one. He was a good man, trying to do a good thing. He had no way of knowing he’d made a deal with the devil.”

Shaggy nods thoughtfully. “Okay. Back to the devil.”

I blow out another hard breath, drag my hands through my hair. “He acted like my best friend in the world. That’s what he said we were, best friends. Brother and sister. Two peas in a pod, so lucky to have found each other. And to his credit, he was a perfect gentleman.” My voice gains an edge. “At first.”

In the silence, I feel Shaggy searching for words. “How do I put this delicately… He forced you?”

“No. Or else I would have stabbed him much sooner. No, S?ren would never take a woman against her will. He thought that was beneath him. Something only animals would do. And besides, he was beautiful. He had plenty of willing playmates.”

I shudder at the memory of all those girls who’d arrive at the house smiling and coy in the evening, and leave in the morning walking gingerly, with bruises mottling their lovely necks.

“At first I thought it was all in my head, these little…attentions he would pay me. I mean, we were related, for f*ck’s sake! He showed me the DNA tests that proved it. It couldn’t be happening. Only it was. And at seventeen, I had no frame of reference for how to deal with something like that. Something so…gross. It was just gross and twisted and unbelievable, and I kept pushing the thought away, and we kept working together, learning new hacks, creating new code, planning…”

Shaggy asks sharply, “Planning what?”

My exhalation sounds as if it comes from the body of a hundred-year-old woman. “The kind of Utopia only the truly na?ve or insane believe can exist. Countries without borders. Societies without governments. Freedom and equality for everyone, of every race, color, and creed.”

“And you thought you could do that through hacking,” Shaggy says flatly.

I turn and look him in the eye. “If every electronic system on the planet went down, how many hours would it be before total chaos ensued? No lights, no refrigeration, no goods being transported because no fuel could be pumped from gas tanks. No hospitals. No medicine. No food. No Internet. No phones. No emergency response teams. No police. No infrastructure.

“Modern society is a sand castle, and all it would take to bring it crashing down is one good wave. That wave is the failure of technology. Knock out a single transformer manufacturer and just nine of our fifty-five thousand interconnected electrical substations, and all the power goes out in the US for eighteen months. Eighteen months. My best guess? At least half the population wouldn’t survive it.”

After a moment, Shaggy says, “Yes. Those equations have been run.”

“So you see my point.”

“All right. So you were an idealistic teenager, and he was your pervy older brother—”

“Half brother!”

“Excuse me. Pervy half brother with a penchant for sadomasochism and hobbies that included plotting the downfall of society and trying to get into his little sister’s panties. Excuse me again,” he says, seeing the violence in my eyes, “Half sister’s panties.”

“In a nutshell,” I say stiffly, “yes.”

“So what was the tipping point? What made you decide to take him out?”

I drop into the chair and slouch down. Looking at its scarred surface, I say dully, “When I discovered that he used some of my code, software that I had written, to hack into a military satellite and intercept a drone conducting surveillance over Kandahar. He changed the coordinates, gave it new orders.” My voice drops. “The drone was armed with a Hellfire missile.”

“What was the target?”

It’s almost unbearable to do it, but I look up and meet his eyes. “A grade school. He bombed a f*cking grade school. When I confronted him, he said he was doing a service to humanity by killing future terrorists. I could choke on the irony of that.”

Shaggy doesn’t even have the good grace to look disgusted. “When was this?”

“December 25, 2007.” When I swallow it tastes like ashes. “He said it was his Christmas present to me.”

I have to look away for a moment to compose myself before I can continue. “Before that, it was all talk. At least, I thought it was. He’d say casually, ‘Tabitha, did you see the news today? Bomb went off in the British Prime Minister’s office,’ and he’d smile. I’d roll my eyes and tell him he was full of shit. It was a game he liked to play. A little deception. The boy who cried wolf. Only ultimately I realized it wasn’t a game. I mean, for him it was. For everyone else, it was deadly real. But until the end, I had no idea that he was really…that he was capable of…”